I have a friend who says she used to cry and sob when her mom dropped her off and go run to the window and cry at it until her mom was out of sight and then she was fine -- she just liked being dramatic and winding her mom up. That's probably not the case with your little one, but you could always pretend it is if you feel badly dropping her off. ;p

I find this interesting. My mom told me that I did this (when I was hospitalized at 18 months), but I have no recollection of it and certainly not of doing it on purpose to "wind my mum up."

I would definitely say she's probably ok once you leave, but I'd hate to be thinking that my kid was manipulating me. I find it a challenge to have to keep trying not to think positionally and try and honor her feelings as real. We have so much crying and drama over little things when she is tired, but it isn't helpful for our relationship for me to dismiss them and plough through. And she is only 11 months.

I am a n00b though, so I may well be completely off.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

It might make sense to worry about a 6-year-old manipulating you, but a toddler? It's not something I would consider. It not only seems unreasonable and cruel, but it doesn't help you to think that way. After all, what are you going to do about it if it's true?

I thought in this case the girl was 4 and not a toddler. I'm sorry if you guys think I'm being unreasonable and cruel here by joking that she is hamming it up. I *was* just trying to lighten things up, but my friend really did do that to her mum when she was little (3 or 4).

There are A LOT of kids who will cry and scream until the moment a parent is out of sight, wipe off their tears and start playing happily immediately. I'm not going to call it manipulation but it is a very common behavior with toddlers and preschoolers.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was responding to Tofulish's thoughts on this.

Tofulish wrote:

I would definitely say she's probably ok once you leave, but I'd hate to be thinking that my kid was manipulating me. I find it a challenge to have to keep trying not to think positionally and try and honor her feelings as real. We have so much crying and drama over little things when she is tired, but it isn't helpful for our relationship for me to dismiss them and plough through. And she is only 11 months.

I do still think it's cruel and unreasonable to act as if a toddler is manipulating you (in the sense of being "manipulative" which is not synonymous in connotation with "manipulating her environment"). I don't think it's okay to dismiss your young child's expressions of negative feelings as if they are putting on a show to cause you distress and get their way and they don't have any basis in fact (i.e. "being manipulative"). They may ALSO be trying to achieve a goal (like to get you to stay - but isn't that something you should be glad they want for the most part?), but that doesn't mean their feelings aren't real and it really does seem unreasonable to me to assume they aren't and do what many parents do in that case - ignore them or punish them for expressing those negative emotions. It might be one thing if you have a histrionic older child who needs to learn to express himself in more functional ways, but I just don't think that applies to a young child who has no other means to express herself.

Having that attitude (what Tofulish calls "positional") toward one's children does seem cruel and unreasonable to me and I am not apologizing for having that impression.

And it might be the totally appropriate thing to drop the kid off and leave as fast as possible (that's what I do when I have to drop Malka off somewhere) in order to minimize their distress and that they behave happily as soon as you're gone, but that doesn't mean they were "manipulating" you and putting on show feelings, it just means that you're not dragging out their distress by letting them move on to the next activity quickly. Kids bounce out of emotions quickly, it doesn't make their emotions false. That's what people mean when they say kids are manipulative - it means their emotions are false and they're just trying to make you feel bad to get their way. Everybody wants to get their way, obviously (even a newborn wanting to breastfeed "wants to get their way"), but their feelings can simultaneously be honored and respected rather than denigrated.